Alternative (sic) music of the last 30 years

How These Things Are Supposed to Go – The Paranoid Style E.P.

At the start of the year, one of the records I was most hoping for in the course of 2013 was a debut LP from the Paranoid Style.

Unfortunately, the year is all but past and it’s not arrived yet. However the good news is that the last 12 months has at least brought an album’s worth of material in the shape of two E.P’s – ‘The Purposes of Music In General’ and, at the end of November, ‘The Power of Our Proven System’. And you can also get the 10 tracks released so far in the one place – a very limited cassette release from Misra Records. That’s enough to be going on with.

I’ve spoken before about the first E.P. so let’s deal here with the second.

‘The Power of Our Proven System’ is led off by ‘A Girl’s Gotta Eat’, also the lead track of the tour E.P. available on their short Scottish jaunt last year.

‘A Girl’s Gotta Eat’ epitomises everything that’s great about the Paranoid Style – a fantastic tune, smart lyrics and an energetic backing. It’s fair to describe it as exciting, melodic American rock music – the sort of thing that Uncut magazine should really be drooling over.

The rest of the E.P. is new to me, although ‘Charmed By Myself’ has been featured on the excellent Paranoid Style video channel. ‘Charmed’ is another PS classic and everything I’ve said about ‘A Girl’s Gotta Eat’ is equally applicable here.

I don’t think I’d heard the other two songs on the E.P. before. ‘Everyone Wants To Go To Heaven (but Nobody Wants To Die’)’ features one of the band’s more raucous riffs even as the chorus demonstrates their knack for conjuring up pure pop melodies.

Closing track ‘Psychic Benefits’, after an atypical synth opening and some gorgeous ooh-oohs, again demonstrates their talent for wordplay – ‘He said he kept two sets of book/ one for my brains / one for my looks / I don’t suppose either one is fully true’ is one of my favourites.

The Paranoid Style appear to have a measly 177 likes on Facebook. This is nothing short of an outrage. So to try and increase that number (go on – like them!) here are two of the tracks on the current E.P. with videos – their first ever video for ‘A Girl’s Gotta Eat’ and also their most recent for ‘Psychic Benefits’:

Both E.P.s are available on download (here) but, if you want a physical product, also on that limited edition cassette I’ve mentioned before (here).

Going back to that start of the year hope – does the cassette qualify as an album? Perhaps you’ll have to wait until my end of the year list to see if I think so! One thing I’m certain of though is that if you get one of the cassettes you’ll be the envy of your friends in years to come.